


Nostalgia

by kuwdora



Category: Heroes - Fandom
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-06-03
Updated: 2009-06-03
Packaged: 2018-01-27 21:54:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1723766
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kuwdora/pseuds/kuwdora
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>set vaguely post-season 3. Written for comment_fic prompt of "aftershave/cologne." Bittersweet angst, oh how tasty the buuuuuurn is.</p>
    </blockquote>





	Nostalgia

**Author's Note:**

> set vaguely post-season 3. Written for comment_fic prompt of "aftershave/cologne." Bittersweet angst, oh how tasty the buuuuuurn is.

Janice slowly pulled away from Matt’s arms but Matt pulled her back and held her close, chuckling quietly into her ear. He pushed the hair from her face and her smile made him melt on the inside. She ran her hands along his neck and folded the collar of his jacket back and breathed deeply. 

“I can’t believe you changed colognes,” she said after a moment. 

He gave her a puzzled look.

“You wore the same cologne for 8 years,” she said. “What made you try something different?”

Matt’s hands trailed along her sides until they came to rest on the small of her back. “It was an old Christmas present. You know, the easy gift when you don’t know what to get someone you don’t know so well,” he said with a coy smile. It was the truth at the time. He and Mohinder had barely known each other in the months he was shot at Kirby Plaza. Mohinder had gotten Molly a stuffed animal, some DVDs and a board game for the three of them to play when Mohinder wasn’t working late at night. Matt had gone with Molly and ended up getting him a gift card to the book store for the lack of good ideas to get to the guy who’d helped him get back on his feet and raise his surrogate daughter.

The domesticity of going to work, picking up the milk after a shift and cleaning up in the kitchen after Molly had helped Mohinder with dinner made Matt happy in a way he wasn’t with Janice, not since things fell apart between the two of them with the lies and tension and fear about who Matt was and what he was supposed to do. After they parted, Matt had wanted nothing more than go back to his normal life and be happy. And now that Janice was here in his arms, comfortable, smiling and happy with his son in the high chair behind them, dinner smeared all over his face. The blooming feeling in his chest was joy—he was sure of it, but when Janice inhaled again and sighed serenely, fingers tracing his hairline, it felt like one of the legs of a chair he was sitting on suddenly broke.

“It was a good present,” she said and kissed his neck. When Matt ran his hand through Janice’s hair, he was surprised by his own sense memory of curled locks between his fingers and faint stubble beneath his fingertips and. Matt easily surprised by how right things felt when he was in New York, even when—especially when the outlook was so bleak and becoming more bleak by the day.

“Yeah,” Matt said and tipped her head up to kiss her on the lips, trying not to feel guilty about how Janice, on some level, couldn’t ever understand the burden of what it was like to have an ability, to be mired in the culture of being special, hunted, to be used and abused for the gains of conspiring and bloodthirsty men and monsters. She could empathize, Matt could make her understand, but that wouldn’t be fair to either of them. 

Janice giggled and Matt laughed and kissed back with vigor. She unslung her arms from his neck and ran her hands down his chest suggestively. “Wait until after dinner.” 

Matt sat down and watched his wife resume feeding their son and bit into a piece of steak he didn’t remember cutting. When he closed his eyes he could see the mystified expression on Mohinder’s face as they sat across from each other on the couch after their first kiss, attempting to understand the kiss that had just happened by pure accident. Mohinder’s patience was a much deeper well than Matt’s because Matt couldn’t just sit and stare at Mohinder silently. He kissed Mohinder again, more tentatively the second time around until Mohinder’s hand came up to rest on Matt’s shoulder and gave him a reassuring squeeze before sliding side to untuck his shirt. Mohinder sighed loudly when Matt buried his face at Mohinder’s neck, Mohinder murmuring his name in his ear.

“Matt. Some help here,” Janice said, holding the spoon out for him.

Matt grinned when baby Matt’s face came into focus, creamy yellow dribbling all over his chin. There was a matching splotch on Janice’s own chin from Matt’s dirty little hands

“Looking good, mom,” he said, pushing his plate aside and reached for the food, taking the spoon from Janice. He blew a little raspberry at his son which made him erupt in a fit of baby giggles that eventually grew loud enough to drown out the sound of Mohinder’s encouraging moans against his neck.


End file.
